putting a lid on it

Our original fridge had two lids side by side. There was an air gap between the lids so there was never any reasonable way to seal the lids. The lids also were held open by those collapsible springs that always seem to collapse when my head or fingers were in the way. So we decided to build a new lid and ledge for the lid to sit on.

The original lid was covered in a laminate that matched the galley counter top. We stood no chance of finding a match for that laminate and were not going to re-laminate the entire galley. Instead, we decided to make the fridge lid out of a butcher block material. We found a eucalyptus butcher block counter top material from Wood Welded. It was not cheap but looks pretty cool and matches the teak interior well enough. We could only get the butcher block in 24"x36" sections - which cost $200 - so we made sure to use up the off cuts. I made a matching cutting block that drops into the sink.




The matching cutting board built from the off cuts from the fridge lid.

The R-value of hard wood is negligible so we had to insulate the underside of the lid. I used the same extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation that I insulated the fridge with. XPS (or blue board) foam cuts and shapes really well. I was able to shape a reasonably complex piece out of the foam. After getting the shape I wanted, I fiberglassed over the foam with 10 oz. cloth.


The blue board insulation cut down to the shape of the lid insulation. The piece of foam that's cut out is where the gas spring attaches to the lid insulation. I dropped some marine ply in there so the screws were going into wood, not foam.


After fiberglassing and fixing some sanding mistakes with thickened epoxy. Our fridge is composed of approximately 35% thickened epoxy.

We also had to build a new ledge for the lid to rest on. Our new lid was a different depth than the original and I had cut away the original lid ledge in the early days of this project. I built the lid ledge with the same process as the lid insulation. I added a few more layers of fiberglass on the lid ledge since it had to withstand the weight of the lid and whatever else I drop on it.


Assembling the foam to create the lid ledge.


Fiberglassing the lid ledge.


Dry fitting the ledge along with the freezer bin.

Both the lid insulation and lid ledge were finished the same way I finished the interior of our fridge box. I mixed West Systems epoxy along with a white pigment and coated the bejeezus out of both pieces. After the 10+ coats of epoxy cured, I faired the surface down and sanded it smooth. Then I wet sanded it with every grit of paper I could find between 400 and 1200 grit. Then hit the pieces with rubbing compound followed by 3M Glaze and a shot of carnuba wax.


Working on the epoxy finish.



The last piece of the lid puzzle was how to hold up this lid that weighs 20lbs without dropping it on my fingers or head. I installed a gas spring on the lid to give an assist in lifting the lid and keeping it open while I rummage through the bottom of the fridge for the just the right can of beer. Calculating the dimensions of the gas spring was a bit more complicated than I originally planned on. It involved trigonometry, Excel spreadsheets, and a dash of wild ass guesses. In the end, the spring I used worked great. It lifts the lid with virtually no effort, holds it open, and lets you effortlessly close the lid.




The gas spring attachment to the lid insulation.


The gas spring attachment to the fridge box.


The lid insulation.


Actual food actually being cooled by our actually operational fridge!

I still haven't put a gasket on the lid. That's on my list, just haven't gotten to it yet. I will also add a blog shortly on the refrigeration system we chose and how we installed it. Phew, good times right?

The tradition continues…

Jason and I have a yearly New Years tradition to go sailing (or at least boating) on Jan 1 – we’ve done it since our first year together and I’m happy to report, this year we made it out. The fridge wasn’t done done, but it was done enough to keep our beer cold frozen. Woohoo!



Morosaurus (formerly known as Pisces) brought us a special present for the occasion.




That’s right. That’s a scale model of the fridge. Made of gingerbread. Apparently we should have insulated our fridge with raisins and fiberglassed with frosting – much faster to work with.

2 nights at Blake Island Marina were great. We hadn’t been there in ages, so it was good to get back.




We had planned a circumnavigation of Bainbridge Island, but got a call from the Coast Guard to help find an adrift sailboat in our area. Hello World sprung into action! We had visions of salvage rights….

Until we saw the boat.


Jacob and Julia volunteered to board s/v Otter and steer her home as we towed her the 2 miles back to Manchester. They regretted that decision as soon as they stepped foot on the boat. It turns out that s/v Otter was home to a very dead flounder and lots of bird shit. 2 miles is a long way when you’re sitting in poop.



We got Otter back to her owner who was appreciative, but a little perturbed that we brought the boat back to the wrong dock. Or maybe he was upset that Jacob got rid of the dead fish.

Off we went to Manzanita to meet up with some of the Shilshole folk, Palarran and Andante.


A night in Poulsbo was fun and donut filled, as always.


And then Port Madison for New Years Eve where Bint al Khamseen joined us too – quite the party! With a floating sparkler show! Instructions for floating sparklers: 1) get far away from the boat(s) 2) insert sparklers into old floating cushion 3) tow said cushion around the anchorage with dinghy

All in all, it was a great few days on the boat. It makes us long for cruising again, which is handy since we’re headed to PV on Friday to visit Anon.

Feliz nuevo ano!

fridge box construction

(Boat nerd disclaimer - this blog post is going to be boring. It's mostly about what I did to build the box liner, where I screwed up, and how I fixed what I did wrong in the first place. If you want to know how to build a fridge, read on. If you could give a crap about building a fridge, here's some kittens singing Led Zeppelin.)

I thought constructing the box for the fridge interior would be messy and smelly and itchy and fairly time consuming. I underestimated how much by orders of magnitude. As a caveat: this was my first fiberglassing project. Coming into this part of the fridge project, everything I knew about how to fiberglass I learned on the internet. In articles on the internet, it looks pretty straightforward. Those articles always have some guy in snappy coveralls, safety glasses, safety respirator and safety gloves without a single speck of resin in his hair or on his elbows or up his nose. Those articles can kiss my ass.

Box Construction

I used 1/2" marine ply to build out the walls of the box. I had visions of the wood slowly turning into mush over the years so after cutting the pieces out and dry fitting them, I coated the individual pieces in epoxy. Before installing the box walls, I put in a moisture barrier between the box and insulation. I chose Reflectix insulation sealed with foil tape. In areas where the insulation didn't mate perfectly with the marine ply box walls, the Reflectix gave me some wiggle room to compress it. I wanted to avoid any air gaps right next to the box walls where condensation could build and introduce moisture into the insulation.

I then installed the epoxied box walls. I soon learned that the void created by the insulation resulted in a space comprised of not a single 90 degree angle. Because the Reflectix had some give to it, I was able to get the walls into something resembling plumb. I did have to brace the walls at a few spots where the insulation behind them wanted to bow the walls out.

After bracing the walls, I screwed the walls to the aluminum angle iron I installed underneath the counter top. Then I spent a frustrating and f-bomb filled couple of hours filleting the seams with thickened epoxy will hanging upside down and working around the braces I installed. The take-away lesson seemed to be that I was too stingy on the epoxy filler and should have thickened the mixture more than I had (I used mayonnaise consistency, should have used peanut butter consistency). I was using West Systems Low Density fairing filler which is fortunately easily sandable and results in a pretty forgiving material. In the end, I got the fillets installed but spent another few f-bomb filled hours sanding down the sloppy results.

Fiberglassing

Next up was the actual fiberglassing. This the point that I learned fiberglass cloth's natural tendency to unravel. It will unravel when you try to coat it with epoxy. It will unravel when you cut it. It will start unraveling you pull the scissors out. I gave one piece a sideways glance and the next thing I knew, it turned into a pile of unrelated fibers. This meant that when I wet out the cloth I applied to the box walls, I had strings dangling off the seams all over the place. These strings combine with the resin to turn into sticky, adhesive epoxy boogers. Grab one to get it out of the layup and it will unravel seven or eight other ones. I finally just ended up leaving the errant strings in place and sanded them down after the resin cured.

I added fiberglass to the box interior both to waterproof the wood but to also give the interior seams strength. I used one or two layers of 10oz. cloth on the walls themselves and three or four layers in the seams, particularly in the floor. All these overlapping layups resulted in a pretty lumpy finish, especially in the floor. I mixed up some more thickened epoxy and liberally slathered it all over the place. I poured a thick covering on the floor and let it self level. This gave me a layer I could fair without grinding away all the strengthening layers I put in place at the seams.

After everything cured, I washed down the walls with scotchbrite and water to remove the blush (I never saw any but read that West Systems epoxy blushes so I did it anyways). I then went to work on it with an orbital sander and 60 grit discs. As I got closer to fair, I moved up to 80 and then 100 grit discs. I discovered that epoxy + fiberglass is pretty workable material. After all the lumps and drips in the original layup, I was able to fair it all out pretty smooth.

Finish

Here's where I went off the reservation a bit. I was determined to find a paintable, food safe, impact resistant finish for the interior walls. I scoured the internet for such a thing. I asked the folks at the local fiberglass shop. I asked at the local chandlery. I hit up the sailing and cruising forums. I even hit up the boat refrigeration forum (talk about a niche site). No one had an answer for me.

So I fell back to a default position that I had a sinking feeling was not going to go well. I chose to use epoxy but add a white pigment to it. I didn't choose this because I thought it would be the easiest or best solution. I chose it because I never could come up with a better idea. Pigmented epoxy has any number of problems in this application but I'll give you the greatest hits:

• Epoxy is a two part solution that requires some healthy mixing. That healthy mixing introduces air bubbles which will lovingly transfer into your finish. When they pop, the surface looks cratered and pock marked. I've tried using a blowtorch to knock out the bubbles with limited success (and unlimited possibility of burning our boat to the waterline). I also tried misting denatured alcohol on the surface (I was smart enough to not try this at the same time as the blowtorch trick) which took care of the really small bubbles but didn't help with the large bubbles that surface after an hour or so.
• The liquid carrier for white pigment is actually just resin. Which means if you add too much pigment, you can throw the resin/hardener ratio off and the epoxy will never cure. So you have to be very careful about how much pigment you add. Which means each coat you add doesn't have much coverage for the colors behind it. Which means you have to add 5 or 6 coats in order to produce a solid white color.
• You have about a 45 minute window about four hours after you apply a coat to apply the next coat. When you need 5 or 6 coats, well... do the math. It makes for an ugly Monday morning after rolling epoxy at 4AM.
• Epoxy has so much viscosity that it can't help but sag or run on a vertical surface. I could also never get it to self level so my attempts at rolling and tipping resulted in seeing all the brush strokes. "Why didn't you cut the epoxy with some thinner?" asks everybody I mention this to. Because the 5 or 6 coats I had to add would have turned into many, many more.

In the end, I chose to add a ton of coats of sorta messy epoxy (I believe I counted 10 coats across two different sessions) and then work it down into something decent looking. I learned from surf board building forums (click here for the coolest wood & squid surfboard you'll see all day) that you can build up a nice looking gloss with epoxy. Here's what I did to get a glossy finish from a very messy epoxy application:

• Knocked down all the drips and sags with 80 grit
• Faired surface and smoothed out pock marks with 100 grit
• Further sanding with 220 grit and then 320 grit
• Wet sanded with 400 grit
• Wet sanded with 600 grit
• Wet sanded with 800 grit
• Wet sanded with 1000 grit
• Wet sanded with 1200 grit
• Took a buffing wheel attachment on a drill and worked a polishing compound into the surface
• Washed off the polishing compound and had a beer

The end result? Not bad. I sanded through the coverage in a few spots so you can see shadows of the colors behind the white epoxy but mostly in areas you can't see so I don't care. The rest of it came out pretty nice. It also results in a glossy surface that will be much easier to clean than if I had left it matte.







The last piece of the box construction itself was to add a removable bottom on the floor so any foodstuff doesn't end up sitting in water at the bottom the fridge. I order a simple sheet of polycarbonate from Tapp Plastics, drilled drain holes in it, rounded the edges, and drilled a couple finger sized holes to be able to remove it. The final test of the box construction was to check the results were true to the original design. Is the height of the "beer can well" the exact height of a can of beer? See for yourself:





This part took forever partially because we took the summer off to put on a new bowsprit and windlass (long story, I'll tell you later) and partially because it was just way harder than I thought.

Next up? How to build a fridge lid. I know, I can hardly wait!

DFL

In Seattle? Liveaboards get to race their houses. The winner gets a hat that says "I have the fastest house on Puget Sound".

Sadly, we received no such hat. We were, in fact, the slowest house on Puget Sound. DFL in sailing terms (Dead F'ing Last). Turns out that everyone else in this race was somewhat serious. We had big plans to take the prize for "boat that most looks like a liveaboard" - bikes on the deck, bbq on the bowrail, dinghy on the davits. We were unaware there was not such a prize (besides, we were too lazy for the bikes and the bbq, so we just went with the dinghy).


That's right. We race with our dinghy.

We went out with Jacob, Julia and CB - had a fantastic time - we even scared another boat at one of the mark roundings with our big anchor - they steered clear!

Slowest house on Puget Sound? Yes, but at least we can sail these days!


This is the closest you will EVER see HW sailing to another boat (if Jason has his way)


Good day on the water.

Well, my part is done

Did you miss us? We have been remiss in posting because a) not much exciting is going on and b) we've been busy working on the fridge project. Still. We're thinking about contacting Guinness because we might just be setting the record for longest running boat project.

But at least my part is done. ;)

Jason asked me to do the easy part. Install the compressor. The old compressor lived in the cockpit locker but we had big plans for the new one - we wanted it in the cabin because the warm air that it generates will be used to circulate in some of the lockers and prevent mold (so goes the plan anyway - we might be kicking ourselves when we get to Mexico).

Here is the newly completed compressor install:










The fridge saga continues...it'll probably get done just in time to head north to Alaska where the glaciers abound and ice cream can be kept frozen outside.